Just A Shard
by Element's Sole Protector
Summary: The companion fic to Only A Remnant and Mako Shade! Kadaj learns that there is quite a bit more to life after death as he travels with Aeris to redeem himself and become whole.


Here it is—the companion fic to _Only A Remnant_ and _Mako Shade_, that fic which ties them together. This first chapter is related more to _Mako Shade_ than _Only A Remnant_, but only because of what Kadaj and Aeris are focused on; later on his tests are not so related to the world of life. Again, other than this chapter, you can read this fic stand-alone, so don't worry.

This idea would not have occurred to me were it not for devoted reviewers and their intriguing suggestions, some time to think over it, a sudden idea blooming inside my head—you know, the works when it comes to being a writer. Thank you much.

This will be six chapters long, total, focusing on Kadaj, one of my favorite Final Fantasy VII characters. I do not own any of the said video games or movies, which is truly tragic.

Wonder when I'll have more Cloud-centric stories than Kadaj-centric ones…?

* * *

~**Just A Shard**~

* * *

~**Chapter One:** _A Job to Do_~

* * *

"Open your eyes, Kadaj."

He opened and focused them on Aeris, who looked more beautiful than she usually did.

"Good...morning?"

"Yes."

He waited for her approval, as he had learned to, before he next spoke; she smiled and he proceeded. "Why is it that I cannot sleep here?"

Aeris's green eyes glowed. "You bring up a good question with many answers. The first, most direct answer is that I need your assistance and companionship (as you needed mine when you first died) to help me complete a task. The second: you have other missions soon, ones in which you must prove yourself. ...And the third reason is because you are not complete."

"Not _complete?!_" Kadaj was surprised--or perhaps _appalled_ would be a better word.

"No, you aren't. You are incomplete, and thus your state of being is...unstable."

_What a confidence-booster!_

"And is there any way I can become..."

"Whole?" Aeris finished for him. She fiddled with her long brown ponytain for a moment, looking at the sky as though waiting for the answer from there; then she turned to him. "Yes. It will take a lot of work, and a strong soul, and the determination to finish things.... But I think you can pull it off."

"If you say so. When do I start?"

"Now."

* * *

It was interesting, being able to "walk" in the world he'd so recently left behind, Kadaj reflected, looking right and left with a small smile. When before his short "life" had been fast-paced, second-to-second, now he had the chance to slow down and truly explore the city of Edge. Mothers hurried their children along the street, teenagers laughed and shoved each other into the paths of adults and cars, and still other unknown people lived out their lives. It enthralled him--when you weren't entirely focused on a Reunion that would wipe you out, what was life like?

"Kadaj."

He looked Aeris's way; she was beckoning him toward a small chapel.

"Come."

As he moved toward her, a small gasp sounded behind him; he turned and his foam-green eyes landed on a little girl, perhaps ten years old, her eyes getting larger as she stared at him.

A flash of memory sent him careening back--

_"But our Mother can help you--"_

_"Will it go away?"_

_"Do not be afraid."_

The girl squeaked and brought him back to consciousness; Aeris was pulling on his arm now.

"Come on! --What's wrong with you?"

"Aeris--this girl can _see_ me!" His voice was a low hiss.

"And hear you," the girl pointed out, but in a frightened whisper--her eyes darted nervously between them.

Aeris smiled at the child but just as quickly yanked Kadaj into the chapel.

"Why did you wait?" Her green eyes scanned his own.

"I remember that girl! When we were...when we took those children to the City of the Ancients...I...convinced her to drink from..._the pool_.... She recognized me. Why can she see me?"

"The children who live here can see the spirits of the departed. It fades as they go through adolescence."

"So we have to duck into chapels every time a child crosses our path?"

Her smile became teasing. "_You_ can if you want."

"No thanks." He straightened up and examined the inside of the chapel; irreplaceable stain glass, marble walls and pillars that gleamed in the sunlight, and--the strangest thing--a bed of flowers at the front, past the slightly-strewn pews.

_I have never been here before._ But Kadaj's instinct told him something else--although the only chapel he'd been near had been when he'd seen that mysterious rain that had healed Cloud's stigma, memories that weren't his told him of a fight in this one that had parted the seats and shook the ceiling, a fight between a beautiful dark-haired woman and... who was _that_, he who opposed her?

Kadaj dug deeper._ I remember...the woman won the first part of the battle. But the man got up, then--then--then there was a child, a little girl, somewhere in the chapel, and she started crying.... But what _happened_?_

"Aeris... Why are we here?"

"Here-this chapel, or here-with the living?"

"With the living."

Aeris sat. Her long pink dress fanned out beneath her as she gathered flowers into her lap--another gesture he swore he'd seen somewhere before.

"I told you. We have a task to complete."

"What are we doing, exactly? Is it important?"

"It's important to _me_. Does that bother or dissuade you from doing it?"

"No, I'll do it..."

"Thank you." Aeris plucked at a flower's petals. When only the stem was left, she spoke again. "Do you remember Cloud Strife?"

_Spiky-blond hair, Mako-blue eyes, large sword, silent heart..._ "My Brother?"

"Your opponent in life; but yes, I guess you could think of him as your 'brother'." Aeris threw the flowers in her lap every which way around her. She looked, Kadaj realized, terribly unhappy.

"He will be coming here soon. Could you recognize him, if you saw him?"

Kadaj had scarcely begun to answer when Cloud Strife himself opened the chapel doorway and strode in.

It had barely been a month since Kadaj had last seen him, if that, yet he looked as low, as downtrodden as before--his spiky hair wilted, the Mako eyes possessing no shine. He walked past Kadaj and Aeris as though he saw neither; his eyebrows rose at the flowers the latter had strewn, and he took his time gathering each one and putting them all back where he felt they belonged. He pocketed the flower-that-was-only-a-stem with a smile, and Aeris hiccoughed loudly.

Cloud stayed with them for an hour. He stayed at the front of the chapel, head bowed as if in prayer, sitting cross-legged in the flower piles. When fifteen minutes had passed Aeris rose, went to him, and started stroking his hair with the fingers of her left hand. Kadaj stiffened; Cloud shivered, but did not move or appear frightened to find his hair being apparently parted of its own accord.

Kadaj, entranced, watched them without speaking--until Aeris withdrew her hand and herself, the hour was up, and Cloud rose and walked out of the chapel--but his walk, Kadaj noted, now held something different...

He began tentatively. "Cloud seems..."

"That," Aeris cut across him, dejectedly, "is perhaps the saddest man on the Planet."

"But--why? Mother's--I mean, the mark, is gone--or so you've told me--"

"You remember the Geostigma. Yes, it has been wiped away...and all children's sadnesses with it... but Cloud is upset about something--someone--else."

"Some_one_?"

Aeris bit her lip. "It is mostly my fault. My death has hurt Cloud deeply over the years--he thinks it was his fault, it has affected his fighting spirit; he has not learned to go fully past it, to let it be _of_ him but not wholly _become_ him..." She took a shuddering breath.

Kadaj felt suddenly protective of this, the only friend he really had. "Why?"

"His mind is a jumble; I can't really tell. A bit of it is me. Some of it is something in himself; some is... Zack, and a lot of it is...his friend Tifa has hurt him."

"Who...?" The name shivered on his tongue; he didn't and yet really _did_ recognize it.

Aeris gave him what he had started to secretly think of as her 'timeless deity' look. "I don't think you ever formally met Tifa Lockhart, did you?"

She smiled and flicked her fingers. Some of the Mako he recognized on the ground--or was that what they called the Lifestream?--formed a rectangle and showed him the most beautiful living woman he'd ever seen.

His mind sputtered. Chocolate-brown hair, ruby-brown eyes...she was the same woman from this very chapel, the one from the fight he had and had not been a part of!

_She looks...sad as well._

He voiced this to Aeris, who nodded in confirmation. "She is upset because Cloud is. Her love for him causes her emotions to echo his own. She longs for something with a passion, yet feels guilty for even thinking to ask it of him... that's all I can get."

"Keep trying, then," Kadaj urged excitedly--he could not do much of anything with these people he hardly knew, and so felt useless. "You and she have things in common--both very close to Cloud, right?"

She looked sadly at him. "You'll never really know." Then she closed her eyes and seemed to focus; the Mako/Lifestream mist dissipated and her eyes snapped open. She was smiling, now, but crying at the same time.

"Aeris...?!"

"She loves him," the young woman repeated, emerald eyes wide. "But she wishes she could have his eyes, because she feels that to love is to reciprocate the blue. Oh, Tifa...oh, my friend... she is having trouble. She doesn't understand why, but she's not..._clicking_ with him the way she did before."

It occurred suddenly to Kadaj that Aeris was _reading her friend's mind_, and something like amazement flew through him all at once.

"You can conjure pictures out of Mako or Lifestream, read your friends' minds, _and_ be seen by children... how far _does_ our power stretch here?"

Aeris gave him a playfully suspicious look, as if to warn him against corrupting pwer he might or might not even have. "There is little we can_not_ do here, in this form. I'll be testing you out soon, to see what you are good at doing."

"What if I'm not good at anything?"

"Don't be silly," she giggled. "You enchanted a city full of children to follow you to the very ends of the earth, if that was what would be needed to resurrect the Darkest One. I think you can remind two people that they love each other!"

_Of course,_ he thought dryly. _Because it's just that easy. Piece of cake. Use afterlife abilities to bring Cloud Strife and Tifa Lockhart to their senses. About _Mako_. Right._

"How will we help my Brother?"

"First, we will watch them for a few days." She paced up and down the chapel, her voice newly amplified in Kadaj's ears. "Then, once we are sure of the problem and where it stems from, we will work from... well, _death_, to heal their rift."

Kadaj sent a mental prayer to those above. "And so...who's to watch who?"

He wanted to watch the one he'd marked his brother (_please, please..._) because he hadn't seen him since he'd died in his arms a month ago--not exactly the way to part ways with someone. Then again, Aeris probably hadn't seen him since _she'd_ died, two years ago. _Still..._

"_I_ will watch Cloud... and _you_ will watch Tifa."

_Drat_.

* * *

After a week, Kadaj had to admit: Tifa was amazing.

He had watched her dubiously at first, but had quickly come to admire her quiet will, much like Aeris's, and her no-nonsense nature. She bent only around her friends, who visited once (was that dark-looking one really _Vincent_?), the children, whom he liked and already felt sorry for tricking... and Cloud, of course.

_And thus is the problem._

It had taken three days for Kadaj to feel brave enough to stay inside the house at night, and not in the dirty alleyways with only homeless children as his companions (not his highest point, certainly): and once he did, Aeris's words from the previous week were confirmed at once. Past the happiness that settled gently within the walls most of the time, Kadaj-watching-Tifa saw that she not only _wanted to_ be what she felt Cloud deserved (and what _that_ was exactly, he didn't know)--she _craved_ it. From Aeris's reports, he knew that Cloud had found Mako traces all around Edge but had not told Tifa; in return, he told Aeris that Tifa was having fitful nightmares. "About you," he told her, adding that she'd said Aeris's name and apparently had been begging her not to take Cloud away--or at least some "him" that was important to her.

Aeris seemed unconcerned with the fact that she might be a demon in her closest friend's mind--she was worried about the man she had loved not so long ago. "She's strong, Kadaj. She'll support herself--and Cloud as well, if we do our duty."

He looked at her blankly. "Our duty."

"Yes. The angels feel the need for more joy in the world."

Kadaj was stunned. No, not stunned--nonplussed. "The...but..._angels_?"

"Yes, there are angels... in a sense. Occasionally they pass down tasks to me."

"Who are the angels?"

"People who have long been dead."

"So... we could be angels one day?"

"If we were chosen."

More questions spilled from Kadaj's lips. "The angels pass down tasks to _you_?"

"Yes. Holy chose me when I was able to call it."

_Holy?_ "But--isn't Holy just--"

Aeris smiled beatifically for a moment, as a child would. "Oh, Holy is _so much more_ than just White Materia."

"What--"

"Kadaj! Cloud doesn't stand still, nor does Tifa, and neither should we. Their joy must light up their part of the world--the angels decreed it to be so. Let us go our separate ways for now."

And Kadaj had done so, grumbling about it at the time--for being his only friend in a strange new world, she was telling him surprisingly little about Cloud and about life--less than he was willingly telling _her_ about Tifa and the children. That wasn't even counting the mysterious Holy-and-other-higher-powers information she was apparently keeping from him.

_Then again,_ a sudden voice self-reproved him in his mind, _maybe _she_ doesn't know much more than she's told me._

Over the next four nights of the week, Kadaj soon gained a secret of his own to keep from Aeris; while he had sweated during the days with Tifa, trying to find out what was causing her nightmares, _why_ she kept having them, and pondering just how long she might stay silent-and-yet-miserable by Cloud's side, he had found that the longer he stayed in the world of life the longer memories of his own life returned to him.

He saw flashes of himself falling from high places, speeding away on motorcycles, watching in indescribable horror as his bike exploded while he still sat upon it--he felt a tickle of pain more extreme than he could ever have imagined before another more familiar memory assaulted him:

_He got up, spitting in agony, to answer his phone, his fiery green eyes fixed on the brunette that had virtually pummeled him. He'd show her. How he would show her._

The man had turned, and when Kadaj glimpsed his face he gasped.

_That's... that was... _me_!_

The face, though it swam playfully in and out of Kadaj's reach, was undeniably his own; after all, hadn't he alone nearly beaten Cloud twice, in two different places and two different fights? Hadn't he bested precious President Rufus Shinra in the fight for the last of his Mother and escaped in the bargain? Hadn't he managed to pick himself up off the chapel floor and thoroughly defeat Tifa, a quite agile and worthy opponent--after all, weren't the bruises he was just starting to feel from _her_, from their fight?

_But... if I fought Tifa, then why don't I remember her at all? Aeris showing her to me was the first time I really saw her... right?_

_...It doesn't add up._

_But that doesn't matter. I'm here to _help_ Tifa now, not hurt her._

_The only problem is... if I can't _talk_ to Tifa, then how can I tell her that Cloud sess the issue between them as more than just the hypnotic shade of his own eyes_?

* * *

At first answers and clear memories of his former life eluded Kadaj. But during the last two days of the week, two things happened that opened his mind to at least one of his demons.

Aeris met him as he lounged on the roof of the bar, and spread her dress as she sat down next to him.

"Learn anything new?"

"I learned that Marlene isn't actually an orphan--but that's about it."

Aeris raised one eyebrow as she smiled. "I could have told you that."

"But you _didn't_."

"Well, now I am. She's Barrett's daughter, in a sense."

"Oh, all r--_what_?"

"Yes, she _is_ Barrett's daughter. Don't lose yourself in looks alone."

Kadaj shook his head of silver hair to clear it. "...Anyway, did_ you_ learn anything new?"

"I forgot to tell you something," Aeris told him, after a few moments of reflection. "When Cloud and Tifa talked several days ago, he told her that... that nothing good came out of Mako. He's denying part of his own history, and of others' histories who are close to him.... That's what's at the root of his--their--problems."

"He's rejecting part of his own identity." Kadaj had already partially deduced this.

"Yes."

Kadaj sighed. He could just see his brother saying something hurtful and senseless like that.

_Nothing good comes from it._

"Have I helped you in any way?" Aeris asked softly; she petted his shoulder.

"You've been a tremendous help," Kadaj replied, and stood up, making to leave. "Thank you, my friend. And now it is past time for us to separate and get working..."

He relished, in a rather cruel way, being able to turn her own words back on her, and especially cherished the startled look on her face, even if he knew he'd apologize for his actions later.

The second thing happened unexpectedly on the last night Tifa was to have nightmares.

Upon hearing the first anguished sob, Kadaj found the sudden courage to venture upstairs and into her bedroom. He approached her silently as she cried softly into her sheets, and then knelt at her side; remembering Aeris and Cloud, he cautiously stretched out one hand and put it on her long, mocha-colored hair. She relaxed in degrees.

_The dead making contact with the living. If we can do this, what else can we--_

Kadaj suddenly froze.

_Someone's at the door._

Half a second and peripheral vision lent him the knowledge that his eavesdropper (if you could call it that) was, of course, a child who could thus see him. He turned to catch a glimpse of a fleeing little girl, brown ponytail whipping behind her, the last bit of her Kadaj could see--but enough to identify her.

_Marlene._

She had, of course, seen him, would have heard him if he'd made a sound, could have touched him if he'd gotten close enough to brush against her shoulder. It was a chilling thought, how perceptive children were. ...Why _had_ he chosen children to kidnap and hypnotize into furthering his plan to have Mother as his own? When he had driven the child-filled truck, what in the world had he been thinking--or _not_ thinking?

And then the solution to his and Aeris's problem hit him like a strong gust of wind.

_The children_.

* * *

Now Kadaj sat on the steps a ways outside Tifa's bar, waiting for Denzel and Marlene to come home from playing with the other children in their neighborhood.

He had a plan, and he was sure it would bring a real type of happiness and peace into his 'brother's' house. Aeris's eyes had lit up when he had told her of his plan, and she had agreed to watch Tifa along with Cloud for a short time, as well as talking directly within his mind as their means of communication, and letting him do likewise with her. At last, at last, he was being treated with respect and as an equal!

She was contacting him now. _Are Denzel and Marlene there yet?_

_No, not yet. Who knows when they'll arrive._

_I know,_ Aeris replied, _and so can you. I can sense them going home even from where I am--they're about two or three blocks from you. They know that you're at their home._

_And how am I supposed to "sense" Denzel and Marlene?_

_Reach out your influence, Kadaj. You of all people should be most influential to children--after all, you're barely older than a child yourself._

_**Hey**!_

He heard Aeris laughing softly within his mind as she cut their connection, and then a shiver passed through his spirit form. Still sulking a little, he tuned into the disturbance rippling through him--and felt familiar things in moments. Laughter, contentment, connections to Cloud and Tifa and countless others, blissful thoughts.

Denzel and Marlene.

Kadaj straightened up as they turned the corner, and fixed his eyes onto them until they noticed him and stared back, falling silent from whatever one-sided discussion they had been having (for it was Marlene who usually talked and Denzel who listened).

_They're here,_ he informed Aeris. _Where's Tifa?_

_She's painting again._

_What do you mean, _again_?_

_She paints every morning after she's had a nightmare. --Kadaj, you _have_ been watching Tifa during the day like I've asked you to, right?_

_Of **course** I have! I just didn't know what she wanted with all those cans of blue paint..._

Aeris made a scoffing sound and retreated.

"Hello," Kadaj called to the children, ignoring his newly insulted feelings.

They came closer, hesitantly, gauging his mood and intent--they obviously remembered him well. He beckoned with two fingers, and they flinched visibly for a moment before sitting down on either side of him.

"Hello, Denzel. Hello, Marlene."

"You..."

"Yes."

"You... didn't hurt Aunt Tifa."

Kadaj turned to Marlene, who blushed at her outburst and looked away. He spoke softly, while still rejecting with a trace of hurt the hidden, accusing tone in her words that said that he _would_ have hurt her guardian. "I couldn't have hurt Tifa even if I had wanted to--I'm dead, remember?"

Marlene giggled, having visibly brightened, while Denzel's eyes went wide--obviously she had told him about Kadaj and he had not believed her until now. "You really won't hurt Tifa?"

"No, of course not. I'm here to help Tifa _and_ Cloud."

"Cloud?" The name triggered Denzel's own voice.

"Yes."

Marlene moved to touch his left hand--he felt a tickle of warmth. "Does that mean... you're here to make Cloud and Tifa talk to each other again?"

_The innocence of children. How... interesting. Wonderful._

"Yes," he told her (them) again. "Yes, I am. But there's this thing--Cloud and Tifa can't see, hear _or_ touch me. Only you and Denzel can. To them, you see, I would not be sitting here."

Now it was Denzel who spoke--he'd caught on to the problem (he really was a very smart boy, Kadaj reflected), and because it involved Cloud he was anxious to help. "So what can we do?"

"..."

Inwardly panic set in. _I don't really know--_

_Kadaj!_

He flinched; Aeris's voice had burst back into his head with all the force of an explosion. _Aeris! What _is_ it?_

_It's Tifa._

Some concern returned to him; he'd grown rather fond of Tifa over the week he'd spent watching her life. _What about Tifa?_

_She's still painting, but... she's left a shade of paint out._

_...And? _He hoped his indifference and impatience did not shine through. Hadn't she promised to leave him alone while he pondered solutions with the children?

_The shade...the shade is Mako-blue. The exact color of Cloud's eyes._

Something very much like a jolt of electricity spasmed through Kadaj at that moment; everything blurred to background noise.

_"Are you okay?"_

_"He just froze... do you think he's..."_

_"He's already d--can you _hear_ me?"_

Kadaj's green eyes began to shine.

_I have an idea._

He severed his connection to Aeris and thought proudly: _Aeris, you've done it again. Thank you. I know what to do._

His excitement, along with his sudden recovery, seemed to leak from himself to the children and then back to reach his voice. He pulled the two closer and at last answered the desperate question Denzel had proposed earlier.

"Here's what you can do for me. Tifa is painting right now, right?"

Two nods. They must be familiar with this hobby of hers.

"She does this often?"

"Every night after she cries in her sleep," Denzel replied quietly.

_Perceptive, too. Sensitive._

"...Well, she's up there now, but today she's using every blue she can get her hands on, but...you see...she's only _just_ forgotten a shade. One blue is missing..."

* * *

_"Remember what you said last week?"_

_"I do."_

"I have something to remind you of."

Kadaj and Aeris stood close together on the stairs, just behind Denzel and Marlene, watching Tifa as she struggled to say what she wanted to say to Cloud, whose remarkable eyes never left hers.

Aeris smiled at Kadaj. "She's going to tell him everything soon. You did a good job, thinking of the children. They were really our only link to Cloud."

"And Tifa."

"And Tifa," she agreed, smiling down at her friend in life.

"Denzel and Marlene did most of the real work," he said softly. "Without them, these angels of yours wouldn't have had more of their joy or whatever..."

Aeris giggled. "Someday I'm going to explain everything to you, and you're going to realize how funny that just sounded."

_"You know, something good _did_ come out of Mako, once..."_

And as Cloud smiled and moved towards Tifa, the world faded to white around him.

* * *

"You really did well."

They sat side by side at a pond, throwing stones across the water.

Kadaj couldn't resist bragging a bit on himself. "I suppose I can add that to my other magnificent feats--kidnapping children, leaping from buildings, fighting on a motorcycle, beating a girl--and a pretty tough girl, too..."

"What?"

Aeris spun him around slightly, so that he faced her. Green eyes bored confusedly into other green eyes. "...You didn't do all of that, Kadaj."

"Of course I did! I remember it, don't I?"

"No, really!"

Kadaj explained with exaggerated patience, though a part of him was puzzled that she was disagreeing with his clear memories of what had only happened a month ago. "I recall it all perfectly. There was a truck that I used to take the children to the City of the Ancients... I leapt off a building after Mother, and yet I was on the ground fighting at the same time... I was defeated by that girl--by Tifa--in a church, but then I got up and incapacitated her..."

Aeris gaped soundlessly at him.

"But--but--Kadaj, you weren't alone, remember? You should know better than I do--you and your brothers were going to use Jenova's remnants to bring Sephiroth back to the world of life. All three of you wanted the same thing. You had _help_, Kadaj. You. Yazoo. Loz. Right?"

_My... Brothers? Like Cloud and I are... brothers?_

He racked his brain. _I don't understand._ How could he remember things that Aeris claimed weren't his to remember? They had come back to him in the world of life, triggered as though he were an amnesiac--which he could probably say he was, as he really hadn't remembered anything specific, only large things. _Something just filled me in while I was with Tifa and Cloud, and I didn't question it. I thought my true memories were coming back. But they weren't..._

"I... don't remember, Aeris...!"

He grabbed his own forehead and shook himself, working his way into a panic. Brothers? Yazoo? Loz? How could he have forgotten something Aeris said was so important to him? When had he forgotten them, if they were truly real? And could he _really_ have misplaced such important pieces of his life?

Aeris frowned. Her green eyes had narrowed to near-slits. "...I think someone tried to mess with your recollections while you were in Edge. I don't know who could have done such a thing--who had that kind of power--but I won't let them tamper with your memories of your family. That's the most precious thing you have, no matter what!"

Kadaj was taken aback. "Aeris..."

"We'll find out what's going on with you--you and me--together. But now--for now, you can sleep. And when you wake up, I promise you that you'll have your true memories back."

She placed her hands on his and he nodded, sealing her promise.

* * *

_Kadaj._

There was a foreign voice in his head. Foreign yet familiar...

_What? Who... who's speaking to me?_

A cloaked laugh. _You don't recognize me, Kadaj?_

_I... know you?_

_You have always known me._

Suspended in darkness as he was, Kadaj still managed to shiver.

_What do you want from me, and _who are you_?_

_I want nothing_, the other purred,_ but that you lend me your ear to whisper in. And my identity is of no great importance, since you already know it--correct?_

_But I DON'T know you!_ he cried out, into the darkness of his mind.

_Hush, Kadaj, my loyal one. Slip back into unconsciousness, but let me whisper for a while... I will be gone when you wake, don't you worry._

_Drift off for me, steadfast Kadaj_...

* * *

_A/N:_ And that was Chapter One. Chapter Two is called _New Allies and Impossible Missions_, and a few more familiar faces appear whom I won't spoil. :) No more Cloud, Tifa, Denzel and Marlene though, except perhaps in memories.

Stay tuned for Sephiroth, and please review!


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